SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 27 July 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Arthur C Clarke Award
This award has been given since 1987 for the best sf novel whose UK first edition was published during the previous calendar year, and consists of an inscribed bookend and a sum of money from a grant initially donated by Arthur C Clarke. In 2001 the prize money – until then a constant £1000 – was increased to £2001 as a gesture to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); it has since risen by ...
Levene, Malcolm
(1937-1973) UK author, in Australia from the 1960s, whose Carder's Paradise (1968) describes the mixed blessings of Automation: a completely automated society whose inhabitants are kept busy by complex entertainments. [JC]
Vorhies, John R
(1920-1993) US author in whose Near-Future sf Satire, Pre-Empt (1967; vt The Nathan Hale 1968), a nuclear-submarine captain enforces world peace by dropping a few demonstration missiles on the USA and USSR, generating mockable confusion. Despite the fervent advocacy of right-wingers, America does not in fact opt for a pre-emptive strike. [JC]
Vizenor, Gerald
(1934- ) US academic and author, an Anishinaabe Native American of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, most of whose nonfiction and fiction has been addressed to the tragic Native American narrative since the European invasions began in the sixteenth century CE, through which he has eloquently exposed and opposed the conquerors' grouping of dozens of geographically, culturally and linguistically distinct North American civilizations as "Indian"; much of his fiction can be read ...
Woodcock, John
(1927-2017) UK painter and illustrator, active from around 1945; the colour-dense blocks and patterns of his work usually unpack into symbolic but moderately telling representation; it may seem surprising – given his continuing activity until near his death – that he did not publish more prolifically. All the same he produced covers for several authors with entries in this encyclopedia, including Jocelyn Brooke, Susan ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...